The Department of Health and Wellness in collaboration with the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) recently hosted a training workshop on the application of the STEPS survey.

The workshop is aimed at preparing enumerators and nursing supervisors who will be undertaking the STEPS survey in Saint Lucia.

Chief Medical Officer Dr. Merlene Fredericks-James says the STEPS survey is extremely important as it will assist with the monitoring of non-communicable diseases and its risk factors in Saint Lucia.

“The objective of the workshop is to really train the enumerators so that we can ensure that we are collecting good quality data that we could use to get an idea of what the risk factors are for non-communicable diseases in Saint Lucia. But the survey itself is very important, because it will assist us in estimating our non-communicable diseases burden in the country; it will assist us in getting more persons into care because we know if persons are identified early and treated early, complications like heart disease, lung disease, and kidney failure would be prevented.”

PAHO Advisor for Chronic Diseases, Dr. Patrice Lawrence, said the STEPS survey is important to Saint Lucia as it will aid with the development of a plan to deal with the burden of non-communicable diseases.

“The results of the study will lead us to look at factors that we need to focus on during our programme, allowing us to make smart decisions and to maximize our already limited resources,” she said. “The study will be a sample representation of the entire population of Saint Lucia, so the study is about the people of Saint Lucia.”

The STEPS survey is a household-based study which will entail a questionnaire, cholesterol, urine, blood sugar and blood pressure testing. The survey will commence in November and will run for ten weeks.